Mayor’s actions give pause, earn praise

You are totally responsible for the school bond’s demise. The superintendent’s salaries are an issue. But your timing of their salaries sank the bond’s passing. You guys are obviously feeling a certain amount of guilt by all the postelection “concerns” you now write about. – Jeff Biletnikoff, Ramona

Keystone concerns

In response to Jan. 25 editorial “On Keystone project, no more fig leaf for Obama” (UTSanDiego.com): Your editorial on the Keystone project fails to recognize the biggest driver of opposition. Americans and San Diegans are worried about climate change. We see this as a threat that we need to deal with soon. If we fret and struggle to conserve energy and gas individually while our president lets this super-polluting tar sand oil pump through the U.S. ensuring its eventual burning after being shipped overseas, we are bound to struggle with the justice of the decision. The small number of temporary jobs created by this project doesn’t seem like a big payoff to the American people that will bear the mounting burden of natural disasters like mega-droughts and superstorms.

Obama doesn’t need to hide behind any fig leafs on this issue. The American people simply want cleaner energy and Keystone XL doesn’t get us closer to that future. – Cameron Coates, San Diego

U-T San Diego’s editorial supporting Keystone XL is penny-wise and pound-foolish. Getting construction jobs in the U.S. or circumventing a Canada-China pipeline partnership are going for pennies. The real issue not even mentioned in the editorial is the massive quantity of greenhouse gases that would be released from the Alberta tar sands. The U.S. should be taking the lead internationally against such foolish projects as extracting bitumen for usable oil. Obtaining useful oil in that manner releases three times the greenhouse gas per barrel as does conventional oil.

The pound-foolish part of this will push global climate over the tipping point. To achieve climate safety (getting CO2 in the atmosphere below 350 ppm) will require leaving four-fifths the current fossil fuel reserves in the ground. The Alberta tar-sands project says, “safety be damned.” – Dwain Deets, Encinitas

The paper’s editorial supporting the Keystone XL pipeline (“Time for Obama to reverse Keystone stand,” Jan. 26) shows the ideological shift of the paper’s new management and disregard for science. In the past, the paper acknowledged the science shows climate change is occurring as a result of fossil fuels and that we need to address the problem. Now, however, the paper says “The environmental risks (of Keystone) are minimal.”

Dr. James Hansen and countless other climatologists vehemently disagree. Hansen says it is “game over” for the climate if Keystone is approved. Why? Because a massive carbon bomb will be released if the tar sands are exploited that will force CO2 and global temperature to far overshoot acknowledged dangerous levels. Also, the scale of the Florida-size devastation resulting from scouring the earth to access bitumen, and loss carbon-absorbing forests, are hard to fathom.

We need to push for an international treaty to keep all tar sands in the ground. – John H. Reaves, San Diego